Parmesan & Rosemary Breadrolls

Last year our new young tenant, who had just moved into our granny flat, sent over a batch of bread dough, all beautifully pressed into rounds ready for us to braai (in thanks for borrowing half the equipment in my kitchen for his braai ).

He had bought the dough at our neighbourhood Spar, which makes really delicious white bread, and the roosterkoekies were wonderful, straight off the braai grid and eaten with lashings of butter.

Now for some odd reason, I’d never made bread like this on the fire, or even had them at someone else’s braai – we usually make a loaf in a cast iron pot. Well, these were just so quick and delicious, that I couldn’t wait to try make some myself.

I made my own bread dough, using my favourite recipe, with lots of tweaking to make a savoury bread to go with a braaied rump steak and salad. Here’s the recipe:

Rosemary & Parmesan Braai Bread Rolls

3 1/2 cups white flour

1 sachet instant yeast

5 mls salt

60 mls olive oil

30 mls sugar

3 sprigs of fresh rosemary

1/2 cup of finely grated parmesan cheese

+/- 500 mls luke warm water

Mix together the flour, salt and yeast.

Finely chop the rosemary leaves (I used a pair of scissors to snip them into the flour) and a stir into the flour along with the grated parmesan.

Stir in the sugar, add the oil, then add sufficient water to make a dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and springy, and no longer sticky – about 10-15 minutes, it’ll keep you warm!

Place the dough into an oiled dish, and allow to prove until roughly double in size (pour another glass of wine, and sit by the fire for a while)

When the dough is ready, knead again slightly, and flatten out to about 2.5 cm thick. Cut circles with a cookie cutter (like scones), or just roll into even sized balls of dough – don’t make them too big, they must cook through quickly. Flour the surface you are working on well, and also flour the tops of each roll.

Sit them on a bread board somewhere warm to rise again slightly – they will get sort of round and puffy

Place on the braai grid over coals, (not too hot), and turn frequently until they are done, and sound hollow when tapped.

They should have crisp, crunchy crusts, and soft fragrant insides – the smell of herbs and cheese while they are on the braai grid is just mouth-watering, YUM.

Serve with lots of butter, and enjoy!!

It was a perfect braai and I was very happy – you know me, people – I like to braai

These work just as well with bought dough – these are the ones from our tenant:

This is now my favourite method of making bread when we are camping – when there are just the two of us, I make up a batch, place half in the fridge, and bake the other half as rolls for lunch – nothing better than fresh hot bread-rolls straight off the fire!

15 responses to “Parmesan & Rosemary Breadrolls”

Hi Linda I’m the food writer for Beeld and want to ask if I can use this bread recipe in our outdoor supplement (Buite). I will give you full credit of course and refer people to your blog. Please let me know if this will be OK.
Kind regards
Karla Janse van Vuuren (karla.jvanvuuren@media24.com)

I love this version of ‘braai broodjies’ – we actually made some on the weekend (just plain) but with lashings of butter and syrup! Looking forward to braaiing on the weekend!!
Have a good one!! xxxx (and Big hugs from Jessica)